Author: Linda Sue Grimes

Edgar Lee Masters’ “Conrad Siever”

Conrad Siever contrasts his feelings for two distinctive segments of his land: the part with the cemetery he finds “wasted”; but he loved the acres that held his apple tree and lovingly nurtured that tree in life and continues to do so even after death. 

Introduction and Text of “Conrad Siever”

The speaker of Edgar Lee Masters’ “Conrad Siever” from Spoon River Anthology is contrasting his feelings for the acres of his property where a cemetery is located with those acres that hold his prized apple tree.    

Siever’s property is mentioned in two other Spoon River poems; in “Hare Drummer,” Hare asks if the young folk “still go to Siever’s / For cider, after school.”  Also in the epitaph,”Amelia Garrick,” Amelia refers to Siever’s woods, “Where the thickets from Siever’s woods / Have crept over.”  Thus, the reader infers that Conrad Siever owned many acres of land.

The structure of this poem presents two movements that basically offer the theme of “not there, but here.” The first movement dramatizes the speaker’s negative or “not there” rubric; he did not love the part of his property that tendered certain features.  

The second movement dramatizes the “but here” or positive part of the construction, which is the section of his land that he loved and attended to in life and seemingly continues to do so in death.

Conrad Siever

Not in that wasted garden
Where bodies are drawn into grass
That feeds no flocks, and into evergreens
That bear no fruit—
There where along the shaded walks
Vain sighs are heard,
And vainer dreams are dreamed
Of close communion with departed souls—
But here under the apple tree
I loved and watched and pruned
With gnarled hands
In the long, long years;
Here under the roots of this northern-spy
To move in the chemic change and circle of life,
Into the soil and into the flesh of the tree,
And into the living epitaphs
Of redder apples!

Commentary on “Conrad Siever”

Conrad Siever loved his apple tree and lovingly nurtured it in life and death.  

First Movement:   Fruitless Evergreens

Not in that wasted garden
Where bodies are drawn into grass
That feeds no flocks, and into evergreens
That bear no fruit—
There where along the shaded walks
Vain sighs are heard,
And vainer dreams are dreamed
Of close communion with departed souls—

Despite his owning considerable property, Siever begins with a negative assertion that he did not take his essential being in “that wasted garden,” where despite the continued interest of other people, there is no food for “flocks” and where fruitless evergreens abide. 

He points out that that wasted garden strikes him as rather useless, where “vain sighs are heard,” and he adds that even “vainer dreams are dreamed.”  He is revealing that the part of  his property that includes a cemetery is where those vain dreamers come to attempt “close communion with departed souls.”

Siever first concentrates on the part of his land that he finds least useful and therefore least important.  By beginning with a sort of condemnation of uselessness, he thereby emphasizes his interest in productive endeavors, which he finds important, much more significant than the land that merely hold the bodies of dead folks.

Second Movement:  Not There, but Here

But here under the apple tree
I loved and watched and pruned
With gnarled hands
In the long, long years;
Here under the roots of this northern-spy
To move in the chemic change and circle of life,
Into the soil and into the flesh of the tree,
And into the living epitaphs
Of redder apples!

Siever has remarked that it is not to those useless parts of his property that he was attached but instead to “here under the apple tree.”  It was in this place that the speaker  afforded his affection for his property; he worked on his apple tree, pruning and tending to its needs, even as his hands became “gnarled,” likely causing pain during his hard labor.  Obviously, Siever’s real love and occupation was for his apple tree; thus, he tended it with great care and affection.

Now Siever is buried under his beloved “northern-spy,” specifically and more importantly, “under the roots.” And he attests that he is still attending to his former occupation.  His spirit is now able to “move in the chemic change and circle of life.” That spirit circulates “into the soil and into the flesh of the tree.”  

Siever dramatically and triumphantly announces that just as when alive he strove to produce better apples, his spirit is now accomplishing the same goal as it pushes itself “into the living epitaphs / Of redder apples!”

Siever has shown that he bestowed his love and attention upon the fertile, apple-growing segment of his land.  Instead of “epitaphs” of dead people, he continues to grow living reports of useful fruit as he continues to pursue “redder apples.”  

He is demonstrating that his loving interest was in useful, productive activity, rather than dreaming and sighing and eternal waiting.  Even in death, his strong spirit continues his dedication to caring for his apple producing tree.

Edgar Lee Masters’ “Hare Drummer”

”Hare Drummer” portrays beautiful memories of pastoral scenery.

Introduction and Text of “Hare Drummer” 

Hare Drummer asks a series of questions, seeking to learn how things have continued on after his death.  That question format is reminiscent of A. E. Housman’s “Is my team ploughing,”  in which a dead man asks for a report about how things are going now that he has died.

Hare Drummer

Do the boys and girls still go to Siever’s  
For cider, after school, in late September?
Or gather hazel nuts among the thickets  
On Aaron Hatfield’s farm when the frosts begin?
For many times with the laughing girls and boys
Played I along the road and over the hills
When the sun was low and the air was cool,  
Stopping to club the walnut tree  
Standing leafless against a flaming west.
Now, the smell of the autumn smoke,
And the dropping acorns,
And the echoes about the vales
Bring dreams of life. They hover over me.
They question me:  
Where are those laughing comrades?
How many are with me, how many
In the old orchards along the way to Siever’s,  
And in the woods that overlook  
The quiet water?

Interpretive Reading 

Commentary on “Hare Drummer”

Hare Drummer poses a series of questions about what life has been like for those who have lived on after he died. 

First Movement:  Does Life Go On After? 

Do the boys and girls still go to Siever’s  
For cider, after school, in late September?
Or gather hazel nuts among the thickets  
On Aaron Hatfield’s farm when the frosts begin?

Hare begins by asking if the young folk “still go to Siever’s / For cider, after school, in late September?”  He continues with his second question, asking if they still “gather hazel nuts among the thickets” on the farm owned by Aaron Hatfield “when the frost begins.”

Hare’s purpose in questioning seems quite innocent, as if he is merely curious about the continuation of life as he had seen it.  And his questions and comments simply paint a portrait of simple, pastoral life including farms, hills, trees, cold weather, and “quiet water.”

Second Movement:  Down Memory Lane

For many times with the laughing girls and boys
Played I along the road and over the hills
When the sun was low and the air was cool,  
Stopping to club the walnut tree  
Standing leafless against a flaming west.

Hare then offers the explanation that he had accompanied “the laughing girls and boys” as they all “played [ ] along the road and over the hills.”  He remembers how they would knock down walnuts from the tree which stood “leafless against the flaming west.”

Third Movement:  The Smell of Autumn Smoke

Now, the smell of the autumn smoke,
And the dropping acorns,
And the echoes about the vales
Bring dreams of life. They hover over me.

Intimating that he now smells “autumn smoke” and acorns drop on his grave, he dramatizes how “echoes about the vales / Bring dreams of life.”  His  memory abounds with sights and sounds that he experienced when he was alive.  These dreams and experiences “hover over me,” he asserts.

Fourth Movement:  Questioned by Phantoms

They question me:  
Where are those laughing comrades?
How many are with me, how many
In the old orchards along the way to Siever’s,  
And in the woods that overlook  
The quiet water? 

And just as Hare questions some phantom audience, he is questioned by the same phantoms.  They want to know how many of his former playmates are with him and how many are still making their way through “the old orchards along the way to Siever’s.”  And he also wonders how many still visit “the woods that overlook / The quiet water.”

Edgar Lee Masters’ “Frank Drummer”

“Frank Drummer” had high aspirations for himself but died young at age twenty-five.

Introduction and Text of “Frank Drummer”

The epitaph”Frank Drummer” from Edgar Lee Masters’ American classic Spoon River Anthology features a character study of a milder personality than most of the other Spoon River collection o f speakers.

Frank Drummer

Out of a cell into this darkened space—
The end at twenty-five!
My tongue could not speak what stirred within me,  
And the village thought me a fool.
Yet at the start there was a clear vision,
A high and urgent purpose in my soul  
Which drove me on trying to memorize  
The Encyclopedia Britannica!

Commentary on “Frank Drummer”

Although the reader never learns to what specific goals he aspired, Frank reveals that he at least thought himself capable of achieving great things.  He demonstrates an intense emotional make-up that was likely responsible for his landing in jail.

First Movement:  Died in Jail

Out of a cell into this darkened space—
The end at twenty-five!
My tongue could not speak what stirred within me,  
And the village thought me a fool.

Frank reports that he died in jail and was immediately introduced to the grave, “this darkened space”—and at the young age of twenty-five.  His emotion was so strong that he could not even speak, and thus the town “thought me a fool.”  Frank, of course, sees himself as one destined for high achievement, but instead he committed some crime that brought him low.

Second Movement:  Bright Mind Turned Dark

Yet at the start there was a clear vision,
A high and urgent purpose in my soul  
Which drove me on trying to memorize  
The Encyclopedia Britannica!

However, early on in this life, his mind was bright and his soul possessed “[a] high and urgent purpose.”  That high purpose motivated him to try to “memorize / The Encyclopedia Britannica!”

Frank’s evaluation of his own capabilities show that he was not tethered to reality.  He thinks that memorizing a set of encyclopedia was enough to support his contention that he was clear-minded and had “high purpose.”